How Animals Really Disperse Scent

This article would be helpful for all hunters who would like to improve their hunting experiences.
 

By Rex Holmes, Jr., the World’s Foremost Authority on Animal Scents

And The Inventor of The Vapor Maker ® Scent Dispersal System

Did you know that the rut has happened as early as October in Illinois?  There is one factor that will start the rut a month or month and a half early.  Do you know what it is?  Temperature!

The reason the cold temperature will trigger the rut early is because that is how nature helps put the scent of does in heat all over the woods.

This is how nature helps the bucks find the does.  When a deer smells you 99% of the time what does he smell?   He smells your perspiration.  He also smells it in a liquid state.  In fact, all animals smell in a liquid form.  Even a snake runs his tongue out to pick up the moisture from the air to help him determine what is around him. When you are really hot and it is very cold outside, you give off a lot more perspiration.  The same is true with a doe in heat.  This is why it is called “in heat.”

I believe a doe’s temperature rises to about 112 degrees when she is in heat.  An example of this theory can be seen if you have ever peed outside when it was very cold.  Steam from the warm liquid goes straight up and then down and all around.  A deer has a normal body temperature of 104 degrees.   When she is in heat, the scent steam is coming off of her private parts and everywhere she goes it floats all through the woods sticking to every bush, blade of grass and tree it comes in contact with.

 If you have ever owned a female dog that has come in heat, you will notice every male dog around – most of whom you’ve never laid eyes on before is at your house trying to find your female dog.  How did they know where to come?  Scent.  Specifically, the scent of the dog in heat which has been carried throughout the neighborhood and deposited on every bush and blade of grass around.  That is why male dogs go around smelling every bush they come by.

This is similar to the steam or preparation coming off of the doe in heat and being carried down through the woods by prevailing winds and sticking to every bush it comes in contact with.   When a buck smells this scent, especially a 5 or 6 year old, he smells the liquid form of the scent and knows it is the real thing.  He won’t question scent in a liquid form that is disseminated through the air.  He will come straight to the source – or doe – to mate every time.

This is where The Vapor Maker® comes into play.  The Vapor Maker® is the only scent dispersal system on the market that you have total control of.  It requires no batteries because it is a pump up bottle that holds 16 oz. of liquid.  It has a special atomizing tip that will take any kind of scent and put it in the air exactly like nature does.  It also has a 3 foot hose with a clip to hook to a limb down wind or out to your side in a tree stand.  Because the bottle is made of a durable plastic you cannot hurt it or break it if you drop it from the tree stand. You can turn the bottle on by turning the ball valve, and with a 3 mph wind it will carry the scent 1/8 of a mile through the woods.  The more wind, the further the scent will go.  As you walk through the woods you can spray the bushes and low hanging tree limbs to lay a scent trail straight to your stand.  Because scent in the air in a liquid form is the natural way deer smell, it needs to be watered down.  A deer can smell 1000 times better than you and I.  If it is strong to you it will overpower the sensitive olfactory system of a deer.  You have to make the smell the same as nature does in order to fool the deer.

Deer are naturally inquisitive and may do anything at any time, but we want them to do it all the time because it is a natural instinct.  So a 1 oz. bottle of a strong scent would need about 8 oz. of water to make it smell natural.  At Vapor Trail Scents, L.L.C. our scents are 100% natural – made from a food source deer and other animals love.   We gather the food source and make the scent ourselves. All of our scents, attractants and cover ups come in 4 oz. bottles and sell for just $7.00.  We have found that 8 oz. of water to 4 oz. of our scent, My Shelia Doe in Heat, is perfect to fool all the bucks in your neck of the woods. 

We also make the only cover scent and attractant – 33 Point Buck – that will eliminate the smell of gasoline.  We have tested it against all the top scent killers on the market and the 33 Point Buck consistently beat out the competition in eliminating all types of scents.

We are confident the 33 Point Buck will totally cover up your scent.  Used with the Doe in Heat, these two make an unbeatable pair to optimize your hunting experience.  We recommend 4 oz. of 33 Point to 4 oz. of water.  You can also spray it directly on your clothing using The Vapor Maker®.

Our company also makes Dominant Buck and Wapiti Scents.  Read about us and our products at www.vaportrailscents.com

New Scent Dispersal System and Scents for Hunters

Found this article about a new scent dispersal system.  Thought it was interesting and could be helpful to other hunters.  I plan to follow-up and check it out.  I have included most of the article which appeared May 2011 in a Misissippi newspaper.
Rex Holmes didn't start out to invent anything.  It kinda happened by accident, he says.  Holmes has been a deer hunter all his life.  He used all the latest equipment, all the scent blockers. He went to Alabama for a hunt in 2008...walked out of the lodge, drove a short distance to a deer blind, got inside the blind to wait.  Then all 23 deer approached, turned and went the other way.  Holmes figured it's the scent.  The deer could detect his scent from a small, slit opening in the blind, although it was otherwise enclosed, and he was using scent blockers.
   "There's gotta be a way," Holmes thought while the deer went in the other direction.  It set the wheels in motion for a better way to disperse a scent blocker.  Walking through a Walmart store Holmes pilfered through a bargain bin and came across a personal mister.  That's when the idea hit him for his Vapor Maker device.  He thinks of it as divine intervention. "That type of mister wasn't even supposed to be in that Walmart store."
   "He's teamed up with a scent maker, Sammy Corley, who was making formulas for personal use before getting a patent.  Together the two came up with a way to cover a hunter's scent and attract a buck. Holmes emailed the maker of the mister he had picked up and explained what he had in mind.
   The manufacturer of Holmes' original vaporizer bottle - Misty Mate - weren't deer hunters, but they listened, went along and Holmes and Corley and their fledging company came up with a final design that Misty Mate makes for them with their trade name - The Vapor Maker.  It is designed with the deer hunter in mind.
  The Vapor Maker uses their scent that covers human scent and also acts as an attractant.  When it is activated, it atomizes the substance into the air.  They call their scent 33 Point Buck.  Holmes says 33 Point Buck is 100% natural.  It is completely organic and non-toxic.
   The product has caught on at various sports stores and they hope to expand production this year.  Right now the company is dealing with some top sporting supply stores in hopes of getting their product distributed nationwide.
   Holmes said he found out by accident that the scent they sell will cover up any smell...even that of gasoline.  He left his boat in the water on a hunt, and when he went to plug the gas line to the motor, it spilled on his hand.  A little spary of the 33 Point Buck and the smell of gas was gone.
   Two other scents are also available for the hunting season...Doe in Heat and Dominant Buck.   You can check out and order any of the products online at their website  http://www.vaportrailscents.com/

Do You Really Want to Video Your Hunt?

In 2009 a couple of hunting buddies, Joey and Ross and I decided we would go on a 10-day deer hunt to Wyoming.  In addition to the experience of the hunt, our purpose for going was to get video footage using The Vapor Maker®, a scent dispersal product that had just debuted at the 2009 Buckmasters Expo.

To get video footage of a hunt you need a video camera and an operator.  Joey and Ross had never been filmed hunting and I had never operated a video camera, but that didn’t deter us one bit.  After all I had used a Canon digital camera with success; I just needed to get a Canon video camera to take on the hunt.  I searched Ebay and purchased a used camera I felt would be just what I needed.  The purchase came in less than 24 hours before we were to leave for Wyoming, so I had no time to even test out the camera.  I purchased the tapes and downloaded the manual, how difficult could this be?

We had planned to leave in mid-September, barring no work or personal problems arising.  The day came; actually the night finally came because we left at 9 pm and drove the 1800 miles -26 hours - straight through to the house we had rented in Wyoming.  We unloaded and got everything ready to go hunting.  We unpacked the video camera and started to load the tapes, realizing none of us had ever seen a professional video camera before, much less turn one on or load a tape in it. Does this sound like three country boys on a deer hunt?

We got the camera on and loaded the tape in…no luck.  Just an error message that said “no tape.”  So we tried again and again….still the “no tape” message.  What’s a country boy to do, but call the customer service line?  We did and they led us through every step imaginable, still “no tape.”   I even called the pawn shop owner in Chicago, IL that I had purchased the camera from.  He could only offer to let me send it back.  Talk about frustrating, here we had come 1,800 miles to video our deer hunt and the camera wouldn’t work.  Trying to do too much too fast, I thought.   I was feeling pretty bad about the whole experience when it occurred to me there was writing inside the camera where we had been trying to load the tape.  Sure enough, it said, “push close this first.”  Presto, it worked, the tape was loaded and we were ready to film and hunt.  I didn’t think much of that customer service representative, and I could only imagine that she was relating to her co-workers the story of the three hunters who travelled across country to film a hunt and didn’t know how to turn the camera on or load the tape.

Now we were ready to head out.  With the afternoon approaching we were feeling confident that we could find a good vantage point to sit and film deer.  This afternoon would be all about getting footage of how many big bucks were out there and how they were moving.  We were excited and felt blessed because we saw 7 bucks that afternoon, one of which was about 170 inches.  We felt fortunate that we got to film him sparring with a small 6-point.  About 40 yards from us we saw a doe come across the creek and pick up a 17 inch 10-pt and take him back across the creek.  It was a great sight which I did capture on video, but Joey was so amazed he forgot to even pick up his bow.  It just so happened the wind was blowing from us to the deer, but whenever the deer would get fidgety I would use the Vapor Maker® to spray scent and they would calm down almost immediately.

It turned out to be a great afternoon and I was confident I had all kinds of footage.  We couldn’t wait to get back to camp to view the footage.   Turns out Murphy’s Law had come with us to Wyoming.  The TV at our camp was so old the antenna wires were screwed to the TV, and of course, it had no cable connection to view the video.  God smiled on us again that day because the local hardware store had a box converter to hook the camera up to the TV.   That problem solved, we were now more than ready to view the footage we had taken.

We plugged everything in and sat back to relive a great afternoon.  You can’t imagine our shock and disappointment when all we saw was the camera jumping all over the place.  I was zooming in and out and moving left to right at lightning speed.   We decided day one was a learning experience and went to bed looking forward to the next day.

We slept in that morning to give the deer time to bed down so we could slip in and hang stands.  That afternoon the wind was blowing in every direction, but we managed to slip back in to our stands.   We saw several bucks and does, but only one buck came close enough for a good bow shot.  It was a small mule deer buck which walked right under the stand without picking up our scent.  The Vapor Maker® was doing a great job of attracting deer and covering our scent.  Maybe our luck would change with filming.

The next morning we returned to our stands even though we felt they weren’t in the best place to hunt and film.  The deer were just starting to move when the bottom dropped out and it came a flooding rain. We had no choice but to go back to the truck and wait out the flood to protect the camera.  Even though I had brought along a heavy duty garbage bag to cover the camera, I didn’t want to take any chances of ruining it before I even figured out how to use it.  After the rain, the sun came out to a scorching 94 degrees.  We took our climbers and headed down to the river bottom.  He heat was intense and we were soaked with sweat.

We were sure this afternoon would be great for hunting and filming.  I was going to be the cameraman and Joey the hunter.  We found a tree and Joey climbed first – another learning experience.  Never let the hunter be the first up the tree when you are filming.  But we were settled in and I had used the Vapor Maker® to spray us and our stands down with 33 Point Buck lure and attractant.  I also sprayed the ground around the tree.  

We didn’t have to wait long before we spotted three does and an 8-point about 14 inches coming down the trail.  Because our scent was blocked so effectively, one of the does began feeding about a foot from the tree.  The wind was swirling, but none of the deer had picked up our scent.  Soon we saw him – a 135 inch Whitetail following the 8-point right to us.  They were about 20 yards in front of us.  This was perfect; I had the camera right on them just waiting for Joey to take the shot that never came.  The big buck was moving in and out around to our left.  I thought he was going to go around us when he turned and angled back toward us.  But by then I had turned around so far in the tree I was about to fall out.   I kept filming (I hoped) and Joey finally released the shot at about 23 yards.

We found a little blood but weren’t sure about the shot.  We didn’t know how to replay the footage (or see if I had actually gotten footage) to check the shot.   Joey said there were about 7 deer within 20 yards when he got the shot off.  He said at 20 yards the buck was broadside but there were too many eyes too close to get drawn back.  We decided not to search for the deer that evening, but to head back and see if we had captured the shot on tape. 

Returning to search the next morning, I literally had to crawl around on my hands and knees just to spot the tiniest specs of blood or see a footprint. When we discovered the buck, Joey had hit it a little too far back. Because of Wyoming gaming laws we had to carry the kill to a taxidermist to remove the brain stem and some other organs because of CWD, Chronic Wasting Disease. 

I learned many valuable lessons during those 10 days.  One, videoing a hunt requires a lot of work and planning.  Using a video camera requires practice, more practice and patience, although in the end I was pleasantly surprised at how much of the footage I was actually able to use.  You can check it out at my website: www.vaportrailscents.com and see for yourself the beauty of Wyoming and the great deer we saw there.  Secondly, I was extremely pleased with the effectiveness of The Vapor Maker® and scents we had developed.  This was really the purpose of the trip and I felt good about what I had filmed and discovered.

All in all it was a great trip with great friends, even with Murphy.